


When It All Changed

by writelove



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, he's knows EXACTLY when it all changed, stiles is the one who always figures it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writelove/pseuds/writelove
Summary: All the times the Stiles wonders if Lydia loves him too.+ the one time he's sure she does.





	When It All Changed

#1.   
The world was spinning, Stiles couldn't catch his breath and it felt like the ground was falling apart underneath him. Vaguely, he could hear her voice, feel her hands steadying him.

"Just try to think about something else!” She pleaded. 

“Like what?” He desperately begged. 

“Happy things! Good things: Friends, family!” 

He couldn't think about family at a time like this.

"No! Not family!" She corrected herself. 

Her breath was becoming increasingly frantic; she needed to find a way to calm him down before they both ended up hyperventilating. Seeing him in this way, panicked, terrified, orphaned, Lydia's heart broke watching him suffer. So she did the only thing she could think of, smashing her lips on his, begging him to steady his pulse.

At first, it truly was completely medical, her kissing him - but then he reciprocated, his lips moving in time with hers, and she found herself unwilling to pull away. Finally, they separated and his eyes looked so deep into hers that she worried he'd see through any lies she told him.

"Why'd you do that?"

"I read somewhere that holding your breath could stop a panic attack," Her heart beat nervously, "So, when I kissed you, you held your breath."

"I did?"

His voice was so innocent she wondered how he could have possibly known so much evil. 

"Yeah, you did."

"Thanks," His voice shook a little, "That was really smart."

A slight smile appeared on her face, making Stiles' heart flutter. His mind raced frantically through the events of the last 24 hours:   
someone was making human sacrifices, his father was liable to be one of those sacrifices, and Lydia Martin kissed him. In all the time he had spent thinking about kissing his long time crush, this specific situation had never come up.

She had done it to save him, keep him from passing out or hyperventilating, an act of first aid, really. But there was the kiss lasted a little   
too long, her voice hesitated a little too much, and the smile on her face looked a little too posed - and it made Stiles wonder.

He wondered for the first time in his life, if maybe Lydia Martin loved him too.

#2.   
The sword hovered against his abdomen, a slight indent forming as he pressed down. His hands shook as the severity of the situation finally hit him. Scott begged him to stop and put the sword down as snow fell around them and chilled him deep within his bones. 

“What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?” 

“What if it’s just another trick?” Her voice cut through the noise like a bullet, it was all he heard so he focused on her. He let her words melt away all the other distractions and finally everything became all too clear: they weren’t in some alternate universe, they were at the school and they had one move left. 

She continued to hold him up as their friends faced the violent attacks of the nogitsune, it was an illusion he assured them, it had to be. 

Her body was warm, heating him up even though his hands felt all too similar to those of a corpse on her back. She steadied him, but he still, he shook. 

They moved as one as his doppelganger stormed towards them, only to be stopped by Kira and Scott as they changed his body. The fly flew from his mouth, captured swiftly by Isaac and he then crumbled to dust before them, jarring the boy. 

He could feel his legs starting to give way underneath him. Memories from the last few weeks range rampantly through his mind and he wondered if it was all really over? Even if it really was the end of it all, guilt would continue to plague him for long into the future. He thought of all the blood that had been spilled, the tricks that had been played, his discoveries at Eichen House, the massacres, the death of all the people he cared about, Alison. He thought about the inevitable funeral, and the return to school, where they’d have to pretend like everything was normal again – even if nothing would ever be normal again. It made him sick. Things went black. 

He awoke to Lydia’s hand entwined with his and tears lining her eyes. It must have been all the emotion from the last 48 hours that inspired so much fear in her, but for a moment Stiles wondered. 

He wondered if maybe Lydia Martin loved him too.

#3.   
Stiles pulled on his jacket and pain shot through his arm. He felt ill after the events of the night prior, the image of life draining from Donavan’s eyes replaying like a scratched DVD. For a moment, he considered telling Lydia the truth, figuring that if anyone could understand it would be her. She wouldn’t judge him, he didn’t think, but he couldn’t risk her seeing him any differently, so he kept his secret. 

"You winced." She glared at him.

“I have a bad elbow,” He lied. 

“It was your shoulder,” He really should have learned by now that he couldn’t lie to Lydia Martin. 

Still though, he tried. “Pain radiates. It does that.” 

They continued to bicker, neither of them willing to let the other endanger themselves, but neither willing to allow the other to go on their own. The thought of Lydia going to the godawful place scared the shit out of him; he wouldn’t let her – what if she got hurt? 

“Lydia, I’m not letting you go to a place where one of the orderlies almost killed you.” He recalled that terrible night and the fear that came with almost losing her. He could distinctly remember the sharp pain in his heart as he pictured a life without her and all the horror that would accompany it. 

“He almost killed you too!” She matched his argument. 

“And we’re both still alive. See, teamwork!” He dismissed her and continued forward. 

It wasn’t something they couldn’t get into in that moment, so he used his sarcasm and got his way, but it made him think. There was something in her voice, the way in shook perhaps, or maybe it was the glint of terror in her eyes as she fought with him, but it made question why she cared so much. It almost seemed that she cared as much as he did, and it made him wonder. 

He wondered if maybe Lydia Martin loved him too. 

 

#4.   
Stiles sat with Scott in Beacon Hills' library, books open, but neither was really studying. Lydia set her enormous AP Calc textbook down next to Stiles with a sigh, and pulled out the chair next to him. She'd promised to catch him up on all the units he'd failed to understand while his tutor was locked in Eichen. Although she herself had fallen slightly behind in her studies, she had been so far ahead of everyone else, it had barely mattered.

"So, where did we leave off? Integrals?" Lydia asked, her smile far too bright for someone who had suffered as much as she had, especially considering she was talking about math.

"After the last month you think we'd get some sort of break, or something," Stiles complained.

"Hm, I think technically I was on a break."

"Yeah sure, you got to lie around and have your head drilled into, but the rest of us had to save your life," Stiles joked with the roll of his eyes before they settled tenderly on her face.

He was the only one who could joke with her about that, because she knew it devastated him as much as it did her. They coped with humour.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be such a burden," She said, still teasing.

"Lydia," Stiles looked at her sincerely, "You know we would've done anything to save you."

She smiled and as the heat rose to her cheeks, she forced herself to glare back down at the calculus textbook, "So, anyways, math."

Stiles grinned to himself as she delved into an explanation about derivatives and limits, her sweet voice making even the most complicated problems seem solvable. He looked at Scott, who was well into a chapter of his biology textbook and for a minute, everything seemed normal.

Sometimes normal didn't make sense to him, though. Why was Lydia Martin sitting in a library with him on a Friday afternoon, teaching him l’Hopital’s theorem when she could be out with anyone else? He knew they were friends, he knew how close they were, but still it seemed odd that she wouldn’t reschedule to a quieter day. Surely she had somewhere she’d rather be, he thought. 

Unless, of course, there was nowhere she’d rather be than with him. And then Stiles wondered. 

He wondered if maybe Lydia Martin loved him too. 

 

+1   
It was him, he was next, he'd finally figured it out but he was far too late. Liam, Mason and Hayden, his best friend and his father had already forgotten him, he was already gone. The ghost riders had surrounded him, he knew running was futile, but did it anyways.  
The wind around him nipped at his face a little too sharply, the thunder cracking a little too loudly and school lights shining a little too harshly, in contrast to the blackness that had fallen with night's arrival. Fear coursed through his veins, of all the unknown that was to come and of all that he'd leave behind.

"Stiles!" Her voice rang out.

"Lydia? You know me?" She knew him, of course she did, “Oh thank god you know me!”

“I know you, but I think everyone else is forgetting.” 

The ghost riders had arrived, Stiles knew it instantly and Lydia only confirmed his suspicions. He could feel his time with her dwindling; he had to get her somewhere safe, but she refused to leave his side. The question that had crossed his mind so many times nagged at him again, but instead of asking her about it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his car, grasping for a few extra moments. 

It was futile, he decided finally as he jammed his keys into the ignition, this was it, he realized hopelessly. 

“You’re going to forget me,” He admitted with defeat. 

“I won’t. I won’t, I won’t,” She cried. 

“Find some way to remember me. Remember you were the first girl I ever danced with. Remember I had a crush on you freshman year, sophomore year, junior year,” A sad smile stained her face. “Remember you saved my life.” 

“You saved mine too,” She uttered desperately, as though she couldn’t go another moment without him knowing just how much he’d helped her. 

“Remember I love you.”

Before she could speak, he felt the steely grip of the ghost riders snatch him from his seat. This was the end, the thought slammed into him like a freight train; he may never see her face or her strawberry blonde hair again, so he tried to commit it to memory. As he stared into her eyes and watched the horror they felt, he finally realized the truth. 

Lydia Martin loved him too.

That's when it all changed.


End file.
